There is currently a grape or fruit box in widespread use which nevertheless has certain disadvantages in terms of the number of parts required to make the box, its manner of assembly, and its ease of use in the field. This well known box construction is illustrated in FIG. 1 at 10 and includes a pair of wood ends 12 and 14 (angled at all four corners) connected by a wrap assembly 16 which forms a bottom wall 18 and a remaining pair of opposed sides 20, 22. The wrap 16 is typically constructed of three relatively rigid sheets of wood veneer 18a, 20a and 22a which are used to form the sides 20, 22 and the box bottom wall 18, respectively. These sheets are covered with Kraft paper shown at 16a, and nailed or stapled to the lower edges respectively of ends 12, 14 (one such edge shown at 24) as well as along the front and back edges 26, 28 of end 14 and corresponding edges (one shown at 30) of end 12. The sides 20, 22 terminate short of the upper edges of the ends 12 and 14 to insure adequate ventilation. The wrap 16 may also include a plurality of ventilation apertures (not shown) in the areas between the veneer sheets.
In this commonly utilized construction, the upper edges of ends 12, 14, (one shown at 32) are each provided with a pair of nails 34, 36 and 38, 40 all of which extend upwardly from their respective associated edges a carefully chosen, uniform height.
A box lid 42, typically formed of a 1/20" thick veneer laminated with paper on either side, is stitched, stapled or otherwise secured to a pair of upper side cleats 44, 46 which may be nominal 2 inch.times.1 inch strips of wood. The cleats may be 111/2 inches in length, extending from side to side at the ends of the box, whereas the ends 12, 14 may be 131/2 inches in length. Cleats 44 and 46 are each provided with a pair of vertical slots (one pair shown at 48, 50) which open away from the respective ends of the box. It will be appreciated that the flexible nature of the lid 42 permits the lid to be bowed upwardly to thereby allow the lid to be placed on the box with nails 38, 40 received in slots 48, 50 and nails 34, 36 then received in similar but unseen slots in the cleat 44. With this arrangement, the nails and slots retain the lid 42 in place on the box 10 until such time as the lid is pulled upwardly a distance sufficient to dislodge at least one pair of nails from their associated slots in one of the upper cleats. The upward bowing of the lid also accommodates a level of contents in the box which exceeds in some areas the upper edges of the ends 12 and 14.
Bottom cleats 52, 54 are fixed to the lower edges of ends 12, 14, and provide a stacking base which will be aligned with and supported by a pair of upper cleats on an underlying box.
With the above described construction, it will be apparent that the precise matching of nail location to cleat slot location is critical to the ability of the box to function in its desired manner. The presence of nails 34, 36 and 38, 40 during initial shipment to the site of adjacent boxes is cumbersome and can result in damage to adjacent boxes. Of course, the loss of any of the nails renders the lid incapable of adequate securement to the box. Finally, the box/lid assembly as described above requires the addition of the bottom cleats 52, 54 to facilitate stacking after the boxes have been filled and lids applied, i.e., to provide sufficient clearance to avoid crushing the upwardly bowed lid of the box immediately below.